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XBMC vs Front Row

Apparently the XBMC (a hacked out piece of software that made the original XBox into a full fledged home entertainment system) has been ported over to OSX and now has a beta release. So, yes, that means that there is now a program to be commonly referred to as OS X XBMC - quite a mouthful. It's meant to serve as a replacement to Front Row and from what I can see of the features offered it certainly gives a load more options than Front Row does. Not that more is better but sometimes the uber simplicity of Front Row actually gets in the way (i.e. how do you define a poster frame for a movie without re-saving the whole thing? Can't I just associate a jpeg like I do in iTunes?). I'm not entirely convinced because the XBMC does have some fairly gross looking menu's and their logo is downright atrocious and what is a Mac fiend if not a design snob? That being said, the inner menu's look sleek and easy to use.

So, for the 2% of you out there that have an OS X based media center, if you're feeling adventurous you can now check out an alternative to the standard software and see if it treats you any better.